Japanese Grand Prix winner Fernando Alonso admitted he found it "difficult to believe" that he had won back-to-back races.
Double World Champion hails team after second successive win
Japanese Grand Prix winner Fernando Alonso admitted he found it "difficult to believe" he had won back-to-back races.
The Renault driver followed up his Singapore Grand Prix victory two weeks ago with another masterful display at the Fuji Speedway.
Starting the race fourth on the grid, the Spaniard profited after Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen and Heikki Kovalainen all ran wide following a first-corner skirmish.
After passing BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica, the double World Champion then controlled the race with a combination of outright speed and metronomic consistency to see off the Pole's challenge.
Alonso was quick to pay tribute to the team, whose improved form of late will surely be a significant factor as he deliberates his whereabouts for 2009.
"It's difficult to believe," Alonso said. "Obviously the Singapore win was completely unexpected after a very sad Saturday coming from retirement in qualifying.
"Okay I won with special conditions with the Safety Car, but today we had nothing and we won again and at a circuit that is not particularly good for our characteristics. I cannot believe it right now, back-to-back wins.
"The team did a great job to improve the car and we are right now behind Ferrari and McLaren and this is something is completely amazing."
Improvement
Renault's improvement during the latter half of the season has left Alonso comparing the atmosphere at the team to that in 2006 when he and the Regie won the second of their World titles.
"(The attitude in the team feels) more or less similar to 2006, but then we had the Championship battle so everyone was more concentrated on getting points than going to the limits," he added.
"We keep learning about the new regulations, the new electronics. We have improved quite a lot the management of the tyres in the race pace and long runs so we understood the problems at the beginning of the season.
"We concentrate to work on those areas and now the results are coming with improvements in the season.
"I am very happy and very proud of my team to have the key to improve all the problems we had. It is a great job from everybody in the factory."
Team-mate Nelson Piquet finished fourth at Fuji, with Sunday's result placing Renault 16 points ahead of Toyota in the battle for fourth place in the Constructors' Championship.
